Notices tagged with search

Tantek ()'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 16:13:00 EDT

Tantek

Discussed Venn diagrams with a couple of friends this morning, especially in the context of illustrating the utility of including all 3 or 4 of a specific set of design principles when creating certain kinds of things, and learned about the difference between Venn diagrams and Euler diagrams.

In short:
* a Venn diagram shows ALL possible relationships between different sets
* an Euler diagram shows only some relationships between different sets, typically focused on conveying relevant or the more important relationships

If you want to dive into their history and why these differences matter, bookmark (or open new tab) this Scientific American article to rabbithole later:
* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/venn-diagrams-history-and-popularity-outside-of-math-explained/

In pop culture and media, nearly any diagram of overlapping circles with labeled regions is (errantly) referred to as a “Venn diagram”.

This is imprecise at best, outright incorrect in many cases, especially diagrams of four circles.

A classic example is the “Ikigai” diagram:

Many (examples below) call this a Venn diagram. It is not a Venn diagram. It is an Euler diagram.

The Ikigai diagram fails to express two specific relationships between different sets, the two that contain opposing side circles but neither of the other two. The missing Ikigai sets relationships in particular:
1. only “you are good at” AND “the world needs” (with neither of the other two)
2. only “you love” AND “you can be paid for” (again with neither of the other two)

If you Google web search for "examples of four circle venn diagrams", Gemini gets this wrong:

And so do the majority of articles that Google shows in top results (which I’m not helping by linking here, but hey it’s Google’s job to fix its search quality, not mine. I was able to use Internet Archive links for two of them at least.)
* https://web.archive.org/web/20260823204717/https://boardmix.com/knowledge/4-circle-venn-diagrams/
* https://miro.com/templates/4-circle-venn-diagram/ (Miro’s own top template there is wrong, though others have contributed proper 4 set Venn diagrams)
* https://web.archive.org/web/20260823205434/https://www.istockphoto.com/illustrations/venn-4-circles-diagram
* https://www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/EW_venndiagram_4

This has interesting implications for expertise and trust.

Clearly by this one example search result, we cannot trust the expertise of "design tool" websites (boardmix, miro), nor stock photo websites.

Nor can we trust educationworld as a place to be educated.

Nor can we trust Google Search (or Google Gemini) to surface expertise above popular misconceptions.

Perhaps a good example of when to use Wikipedia search instead of Google (or other generic) web search.

Personally I generalize this example to “all proper nouns”, that is:

* Wikipedia search proper nouns instead of Google or other general web searching.

You can make this more convenient by setting up “w” as a search shortcut for Wikipedia: https://tantek.com/2024/287/t2/setup-search-shortcuts-firefox

For reference / more reading on Venn diagrams and Euler diagrams:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_diagram

#Venn #diagram #diagrams #VennDiagram #VennDiagrams #EulerDiagram #math #maths #sets #setTheory #relationships #Ikigai #fourCircles #fourCirclesVenn #fourCirclesVennDiagram #misconception #popMisconception #Google #GoogleSearch #GoogleWebSearch #webSearch #search #Gemini #GoogleGemini #GeminiWrong #expertise #trust #webTrust #Wikipedia
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026

Tantek ()'s status on Friday, 12-Jun-2026 22:35:00 EDT

Tantek

How to add Google News, Google Books, and Google Scholar search directly in your browser, to search those sites with fewer steps, and less chance of being distracted.

One of my hobbies is contributing to Wikipedia, and more so, creating new Wikipedia articles. Citations of reliable sources are key to both good contributions, and new articles, especially in making them stick (not get reverted/deleted).

I use Google News to search for citations, and depending on the topic, sometimes Google Books and Google Scholar.

Unfortunately, to search Google News, you have to first go to Google News (news.google .com - deliberately unlinked here), upon which you are immediately shown distracting (if not dire) news photos, headlines etc. which present a non-trivial challenge to staying focused.

If only there was a way to directly search Google News from your browser search box / address bar (like you can search Wikipedia from your browser).

Unfortunately, there is no site-specific search option for Google News (like there is for YouTube, e.g. see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox#w_add-search-engines) that you can select an add to your browser in one click (enabled by OpenSearch support, link in footer).

This is another technology I use for category 2 (defending focus) that I mentioned in my previous post on focus.

Steps to add a Google News search option to Firefox:

1. open Firefox Preferences ("Firefox" menu, "Preferences" item)
2. select "🔍 Search" from the left column
3. scroll down to "Search Shortcuts"
4. click the "Add" button under the list of search engines which opens a dialog
5. enter "Google News" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
6. enter "https://news.google.com/search?q=%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
7. enter "gn" into the Keyword field (without quotes)

The dialog should look like this:

8. click (Add Engine)

Now you can go to your address bar, type in "gn " (without the quotes), your news search term or phrase, e.g. "Broken Arrow Skyrace", and press return to directly see search results.

Similarly for Google Books, follow the same steps except:
5. enter "Google Books" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
6. enter "https://books.google.com/books?q=%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
7. enter "gb" into the Keyword field (without quotes)

And similarly for Google Scholar:
5. enter "Google Scholar" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
6. enter "https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
7. enter "gs" into the Keyword field (without quotes)

Thanks to folks in the #indieweb informal chat who reminded me (when I complained about the distracting Google News home page) of this way to add new site-specific search capabilities to the browser even for sites (or subsites) without explicit OpenSearch support.

Looking forward to using these capabilities to more quickly find citations for updating and creating new Wikipedia articles.

Previously:
* https://tantek.com/2026/158/t2/three-insights-improving-focus
* https://tantek.com/2024/287/t2/setup-search-shortcuts-firefox

OpenSearch FYI:
* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/XML/Guides/OpenSearch

#focus #Wikipedia #Firefox #GoogleNews #GoogleBooks #GoogleScholar #search #siteSearch #AddSearchEngine #searchEngine #searchEngines #OpenSearch #webSearch #SearchShortcuts #browserTip #FirefoxTip #searchTip

pagsheathenman (pagsheathenman)'s status on Thursday, 30-Apr-2015 19:48:57 EDT